


black nails

by tsunderestorm



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10591209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: Genji meets up with Gabriel for some good old-fashioned bonding. After all, cheap manicures don't maintain themselves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This ties in (slightly) to my fic, [down by the highway side](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8569663). It's not necessary to read that to enjoy this one, but do understand that I imply mcreyes as well as a polyamorous relationship between Jesse/Gabriel/Genji in this _and_ if mcreyes is your jam also, the way I reference where Gabriel is staying in this is explained in the linked fic.

Genji makes his first priority the drugstore. It’s the only place with doors open to greet the cold kiss of 3 a.m. desert air, lit up bright with its blinking sign and blinding lights. There’s a cashier at the register, an anachronism in their world of shiny new technology – what few drug stores exist these days have omnic staff. He lets himself browse for a few moments, flipping through a few tabloids, walking through the aisles, fascinated with how some aisles are damn near cleaned out and others have sat collecting dust. The cashier barely even stirs when he hands over his purchase: a bottle of black nail polish. Genji hands over a crumpled twenty and walks out the door, not caring about the change.

His next priority is  _ him _ . The Reaper has been lurking around Route 66, in the stale desert heat of New Mexico - a ghost town of memories to match the graveyard in his heart. It was never his stomping grounds, but Genji knows it reminds him of a time he was human, a time a cocky young cowboy made him feel something.

He doesn't use the door (never does) and opts for climbing through the window – it’s the top floor, last one on the right. His favorite one, only for the view, and only when Jesse isn’t there – then, Genji knows, the topmost room in the sleazy motel is theirs, something secret and sacred, the room of their unholy matrimony. When he slides catlike through the window and balances on the sill, there’s the briefest flutter of movement, a heavy  _ click _ , and he’s staring down the double barrels of a shotgun.

“One of these days you're going to get your head blown off,” Reaper warns, lowering it when Genji doesn't so much as flinch.

“One of these days you're going to anticipate me coming,” Genji retorts, tossing the thin plastic sack off behind Reaper onto the bed, distorting the  _ THANK YOU _ written on the side as it spills. They stare at each other for a few long moments, unmoving – gleaming visor to haunting mask, expressions hidden – and then Genji moves, darting around him to plant himself cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Reaper turns slowly, tossing his gun carelessly beside the other and removing his gloves and gauntlets. He drops them with a heavy  _ thud  _ on the scratched bedside and sits beside him on the bed. The springs complain, squeaky as ever, under the weight as he scoots towards him. With a decompressing hiss, Genji removes his visor and sets it beside Reaper’s clawed gear, combing his messy bangs with his fingers.

“Green, again? Really?” Reaper asks when he sees. “Aren’t you getting a little old?”

“You’re one to talk,” he teases, toeing a line, and Reaper makes a low sound in his throat. Behind the mask, it’s distorted – it could be an affronted scoff, a short angry, growl or it could be a chuckle. Genji chooses the last option.

“I remember,” Genji says as he uncaps the nail polish, “You always wanted black nails.”

Reaper waits a few long moments before he responds. “...yeah.” Slowly, he puts his hand in Genji’s, lets adept fingers hold it as he coats the first nail in gleaming black polish.

“Jack used to complain…”

_ “It's against dress code, Gabriel,”  _ they say in unison, and their laughs are a fearsome sound together – one metallic, nearly robotic, one a throaty, grating croak. It’s just like Jesse says, Genji thinks. The man they knew still lives inside of the wraith that is Reaper, buried deep but able to be drawn out. Slowly, gently, Gabriel resurfaces, hand relaxing in Genji’s grip, thumb rubbing gently across his thigh. The tips of his fingers look bruised, mottled blue and purple, damn near black themselves. Oxygen deprived skin, dead skin, but Genji doesn’t care. His own would be the same, had he not been remade.

Genji brushes on the lacquer with a patient gentleness, sliding the brush past the tip of the nails and cleaning up the edges. It’s not high-quality polish, really, and Genji is no artist – there are a few air bubbles, a few places where the color’s past the cuticle and will surely flake but Gabriel likes it. He sits back against the headboard when Genji is done, surveying his nails and sighing.

“Will you be here for a while?” Genji asks as he picks up the antique remote, flicking through channels that are fuzzy and outdated on the room’s antique television. “Or will you be off doing more things Jesse wouldn't approve of?”

“Can’t say.”

He can never say. The best that Genji and Jesse can do is hold him while he’s there, love him while he’s near.


End file.
